What The Future Holds
by InsideOutlaw
Summary: An orphaned child has Heyes and the Kid pondering the things they've done and the choices they've made.


"Hold on there, partner." Heyes tightened the burlap grain sack around the baby he held in his arms. He wiped a tired hand across his sweaty face and let his eyes stray from the tiny, wizened face to the smoldering, overturned wagon a few hundred feet from where he sat. The Kid was finishing piling rocks on a trio of freshly dug graves.

It seemed a long time had passed since they'd come upon the scene of the vicious tragedy. They'd been on their way to Fort Stanton, New Mexico, running late for one of the governor's special jobs and trying to make up time by taking a little-used shortcut off the main trail. They hadn't been the only ones. An unfortunate family had made the fatal decision to stray from a more populated trail to this route which ran through the Sacramento Mountains populated by banditos and disenfranchised Mescalero and Chiricahua Apaches who'd refused to stay on the new reservation.

It was impossible to tell who had attacked the travelers and it would be up to the military to figure out who perpetrated such a hideous crime. Heyes and the Kid were more concerned with seeing to it this child survived. When they'd found the wagon it had appeared no one had survived, but a weak squalling had drawn them to the cluster of rocks casting the shade he now sat in. They had found the poor woman sprawled on the far side. She'd escaped the bloodshed that had taken her husband and daughter only to die giving birth to this little tyke. Against all odds, the infant was alive and they aimed to see he stayed alive.

Heyes watched his exhausted partner plod towards him and he smiled. The Kid had finally won a coin toss and, much to Heyes' surprise, he'd chosen hard labor over handling a baby. A soft gurgle drew his attention back to the child. He shifted his arms slightly and lifted the baby to his heart. His mother had told him it was soothing. He could still see his little brother nestled in her arms as she sat in the rocker by the hearth; the memory both pleasurable and painful at the same time.

"You ready?" Curry came to a halt. He pulled his hat from his head and wiped his brow. "I'd like to get goin'."

Standing, Heyes held out his arms. "Here, take him and sit a spell. I'll get the horses."

The Kid shook his head. "Naw, you keep him. I'd probably drop him." His blue eyes gazed south. "I reckon we can make the fort before nightfall if we get a move on."

"We'll have to take our time, Kid. I don't think this little fella is up to hard riding." Heyes smiled. "I was thinking I could make a sling with another one of these sacks; carry him squaw-style."

"Makes sense. I'll go grab one and the horses then we'll get a move on. Whoever did this could still be nearby." Curry turned and trudged away.

OOOOOOOOOO

"How's he doin'?" A pitiful cry answered the Kid.

"He's waking up. We need to stop and get some water in him," said Heyes.

The trail had begun to climb again and they were in an area of dense Juniper and Pinyon Pine. The tangled, scrubby trees would hide them well. Curry pulled up in a clearing and dismounted. Holding his horse with one rein he reached out and caught Heyes' mare just below the bit and held her steady as his partner swung his right leg over the front of the saddle and slid to the ground with the child cradled safely in his arms.

"You're lookin' pretty comfortable with him, Heyes. You sure you don't have a passel of kids tucked away somewhere?" teased Curry.

"None I know of; guess I come by it naturally." Heyes walked over and sat down cross-legged under a particularly shady snarl of branches. The sun had climbed to its zenith and the day was growing hot. "Hey, grab me my canteen, will ya?"

The Kid finished tying off the horses and lifted the canteen from around the saddle horn. He sat down next to Heyes and passed it over. "Can't just pour water down his gullet, you know. Here, take my bandana; it's clean." He fished in his pocket for the square of calico cloth and drenched it with water. "Put a corner in his mouth and give it a little bitty squeeze. It'll trickle water down into his mouth."

Heyes took the cloth and the baby was soon suckling greedily at the dampened fabric. "How'd you know to do that, Kid?"

"Saw my Pa do it once with an orphaned calf; worked just fine."

Grinning, Heyes leaned back against the tree and closed his eyes. "Funny the things you never even know you learned from your folks until you have reason to need 'em. Guess there was no call for you to remember until this little fella came along."

Noting his partner's wistful smile, the Kid said, "Don't get attached to him, Heyes. He ain't ours."

Angry brown eyes turned to him. "I know!"

"Easy, partner, no need to get proddy."

Relenting, Heyes relaxed. "Sorry." He fell silent for a few minutes and then said, "Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be a parent? Or whether we'll ever get the chance to find out?"

"Nope."

"You've never thought about having a family?" Heyes was amazed. He'd always pegged the Kid as a potential family man.

"I don't waste time thinkin' 'what-ifs', Heyes, I'm too busy thinkin' what now. Seems like you might've given it a thought or two, though."

"Yeah, and it's never a pretty picture."

"Why'd you say that?"

Shifting uncomfortably, Heyes saw the baby had fallen asleep again. He tucked the crumpled bandana in his shirt pocket to stay clean for the next feeding and adjusted the small weight in his arms. "What kind of parents do you think we'd be, Kid?"

"Good, I reckon. After all, ridin' herd on the Devil's Hole gang couldn't be too much different from child-rearin'." Curry chuckled at some of the absurd moments he'd had dealing with a bunch of knuckle-headed miscreants.

"I don't know." Heyes wasn't smiling. He wore a pensive expression and the Kid waited to hear what was behind it. It was a long time coming. "Babies are easy. You keep 'em warm, keep 'em full and love on them. It's when they're older I worry about."

"Heyes, you managed to keep order with the gang, I can't imagine kids would be much harder."

"I'm not talking about laying down the law to them. What about setting an example? I looked up to my pa and I know you did yours. You think a kid would ever look up to us?"

"We ain't so bad and we're tryin' real hard to be better."

"It don't matter, Kid. The first time your kid asked you about what you did as a young man, what're you gonna tell him?"

Curry didn't say anything. He stood up and looked down at the tableau before him. The infant was obliviously sleeping in the arms of a notorious ex-outlaw. "I ain't talkin' to you when you get like this, Heyes." The Kid walked over and used his floppy, brown hat to give the horses a swallow of the precious water. A few minutes later, Heyes wandered over and handed him the babe while he remounted. The Kid looked down at the peaceful countenance and understood just how far wrong his life had gone. Handing the child up to Heyes, he mounted his own horse without a word.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Kid?"

"Huh?"

"What do you think's gonna happen to him?"

They could see the fort in the distance. They'd be there before dark.

"I don't know. I reckon they'll try to find the rest of his family. Shouldn't be too hard." Curry could feel the small, bloodstained family bible he'd rescued from the wreckage resting in his shirt pocket. The name inscribed inside the front cover had read 'Jonas K. Tripton'.

"What if he doesn't have any more family? What if he ends up in an orphanage? What if he ends up like us?"

"That's a lot of 'what-ifs'," laughed Curry.

"I'm serious. Look at him." Heyes peered down at the little pale blue eyes looking up at him, hearing him more than seeing him. "He already trusts me. How am I gonna hand him over to a bunch of strangers without knowing what's gonna happen to him?"

Rolling his eyes, the Kid sighed, "No one knows what's gonna happen with their kids."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," said Heyes with little conviction.

"Who knows, maybe he'll grow up and be President of the United States," offered the Kid.

"Or he could travel the world and become a famous explorer." Heyes stroked the baby's satiny cheek.

"A doctor, he'll be a doctor and save lots of folks' lives."

"Whatever he becomes, I guess we'll have a small hand in it by saving him," said Heyes.

Curry turned and smiled at his partner. "I reckon I know what we'd tell our own kids."

"What's that?"

"We'll tell 'em we made mistakes, but we tried our best not to hurt anyone and we even saved a life or two when we could."

Heyes grinned happily. "I reckon we will, partner."


End file.
